As I've decided not to move to Washington after all, I reset up my Michell Gyro SE TT with SME V arm and some 'lil ole Koetsu Urushi cartridge so I can spin LPs once again. Shown here also with my segmented Altaira system.
So...once again, the overall set-up: Harbeth 30.2 40th Anniversary speakers on Resonant Woods stands in figured maple. Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables.
Close-up of the main rack:
The Lumin P1 streamer/DAC/preamp (top lieft) and Constellation Inspiration integrated (bottom left) are on the left side and my Michell TT with SME V arm, Koetsu Urushi Vermilion cartridge, and EAR324 phono stage on the right side of the rack. Acoustical panels by GIK Acoustics.
The Lumin P1 and Inspiration integrated amp are fully dual-mono internally. On top are Shunyata Altaira SG ground-plane noise reduction hubs on top of each component, one dedicated to the Lumin and one dedicated to the Inspiration integrated. These specifically reduce ground-plane noise and are
transformative in the improvement they provide for the system overall.
The P1 uses the LEEDH* lossless digital volume processing technology, which easily is the best volume control "technology" I have EVER heard, so I simply set the Inspiraton to Unity Gain, and adjust the output volume with the P1's LEEDH volume control/technology. D/A conversion is handled by Dual ES9028PRO SABRE DACs in Mono mode and a Femto Clock System with precision FPGA distribution.The P1 also uses dual-toroidal mono Plitron transformers housed in an "internal chassis" that is fully shielded from the rest of the circuitry, and also uses fully dual-mono Lundahl transformers for the DAC section. Moreover, the P1 has an SFP cage so I can simply run Corning simplex 9/125 LC/LC fiber directly into it from the remote server room. No hassling with Ethernet and USB cables anymore (
).
The solid-state Constellation Inspiration integrated puts out a conservative 100 Wpc. The "preamp section" of the Inspiration integrated amp is literally the standalone Inspiration preamplifier combined with "half" of the output section of the 200 Wpc Inspiration power amplifier into a single chassis. Both the "preamp section" and the "amplifier section" are a fully dual-mono architecture.
The nice thing about this system is that it's considerably simpler than my previous system, and it just...works. A single pair of ICs connects the P1 to the integrated and I now only need 3 power cords instead of...7!
Simpler really is better, as Linn used to say back in the day, and I have to say this system sounds...FANTASTIC.
Oh, I should also mention the P1 is a fully-functional AVR for Home Theatre applications, as well.
*-LEEDH was developed in Switzerland, and is used by very high-end audio companies e.g. Soulution, Wattson Audio, Vermeer, and Metronome, etc. You can read about it here:
https://www.processing-leedh.com/copie-de-presentation